I love swatchy...

Never in a million years did I think it would happen. I have fallen deeply and passionately in love with some yarn. Not just any yarn, but a special handcrafted little something sweet named Swatchy.

I had been reading about Swatchy for some time, but was really thrilled to have met him/her in person recently at you guessed it - The Yarn Harlot's book launch. She/he is even cuter in person than you can imagine and we even got a great picture together - thanks to Swatchy's partner Noricum.


Really aren't we a cute pair. :)

Aurora Borealis - my northern light...

Thanks to my Northern light - Aurora from Ottawa, who I met at the Yarn Harlot Book Launch for sending along some picture of me & the Harlot, and the Yarn crawl....its keeping the book launch very fresh for me...although, I want Stephanie to do another one - just to bring all of us knitty folk back together.

Here's one of the beautiful Aurora:


Me - prior to the Yarn Harlot's appearance.


Me once Stephanie took the stage and I calmed down a little. (Thanks Aurora for sending me the clean shot - as the original had major boobage)

Can I just tell you, that man does the camera ever add 10 - 20 lbs...ha ha ha. No more Rye and ginger's for me.

This pic is from the yarn Crawl at Alterknits. {Sigh} Looks like I missed a super fun day. The good news is that the TTC Knit-A-Long is happening in T-10 days. :)


If you haven't read through all of Stephanie's comments yet, someone (I'll have to read through to find you again) posed a link to Doug Savage's website for today. Now I can can admit that I have a limited and still developing sense of humour, but I continue to laugh at this cartoon...to the point of tears and peeing and have printed it off to post at my desk to just make me smile. HAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! So needed that today...

Excitement!!!

Here's my list of PYHBLR (Post-Yarn-Harlot-Book-Launch-Resolutions):

a) get back to knitting daily...even if its just a row

b) learn more about Yarn...as everyone around me can always tell me what brand/weight/colorway/gauge etc they are using...and after a year and a half I probably can't call myself a Knitting newbie anymore

c) be better prepared for spontaneous yarn shopping experiences... you just never know when a good yarn sale can fall in your lap, and you really should have a few pattern names/yarn weights/yardages handy just encase...perfect example will be the TTC Knit-a-long

d) identify what yarn I have in my stash - there's nothing like buying more yarn only to realize that you have nowhere to put it

e) finish outstanding projects - otherwise they will never get knit and I can buy more yarn to replace them

f) donate yarn from my stash - that I will never use (mostly because I bought it in the beginning of knitting life when I had no clue what the 'good stuff' was and thought that fun fur was 'cute')

g) be more forgiving to myself - 'startitis' is a disease, thank G-d its treatable - go back to point (e). The more you finish, the more you can start

h) Blogging is good - for the first time, people actually commented (did I mention I am excited and shocked by this), perhaps there is something to the whole effort in = output theory...either that or it was a momentary blip in my blogging world...(I will convince myself that its the first rather than the second point)

i) have more fun with knitters (I nervously put my hand up again at Stephanie's speech when she asked who in the room had more friends now because of knitting. Because of my Monday night meetup group I have met so many new faces and so many terrific new friends. Knitters are such high quality individuals - quirky, fun-loving, outgoing and incredible artisans. I feel really fortunate to have gotten involved with such a dynamic community and look forward to many more years of growth and friendship.

Just to add to the coolness...

Courtesy the Yarn Harlot's website.

I think this is even cooler that my shot in yesterday's entry - probably because the sock is in it as though it is taking the picture. :)

Work be damned!!!

Ok so realizing that work has been the all consuming force in my life, I have been very sorely neglecting my blogging and knitting duties. However, I will try to make up for my neglect a little with this super post.

All day Thursday and Friday I spent all of my time getting caught up in the Yarn Harlot's book release in Toronto.(You have to admit that sounds super exciting!!!!)

I had originally started typing this entry some time Friday morning, only to have to quash that idea to you know...finish work. - ARG!!!

The rest of my day flew by and I left work at 3:30 to go to Thornhill, retreive my son, get hime home and meetup with Janet and Shelley by 5pm at Yonge & Eglinton. I arrived at Y & E around 5:05 and we hurried ourselves down to the subway to get to the Manulife Centre & Indigo's encase there was a massive line up. Of course I left the fully charged digital camera at home and so after much procrastinating I finally went and purchased a disposable camera - so I apologise in advance for the graininess of the pictures.

As it turns out there were a few knitters all ready there like Erin from the Naked Sheep,


and Tanya and her sister in law (sorry I don't remember your name) from Ottawa.


For those of you who know me, it could be said that I have a gregarious personality or that I am a little tenacious...so when we arrived and no line up was started we asked the manager on duty to start it then because we wanted to be first in line and to be able to get a seat.

It should be said that as expected the mugglish staff really didn't anticipate the amount of knitters that would come to support one of their own and only planned to have a small seated area for 80 people. We kept telling them as the line grew that they really should have planned for a larger space...but as all of us have come to understand - they just don't realize what a large community of us there are.

Janet, Shelley and I were incredibly fortunate (and dare I say happy) as we were able to go in and get first pick of the seats...choosing to be right in front of where Stephanie would be speaking on the left hand side of the chaired section front and centre.


As you can see, I am rather excited about this fact and really the energy in the room made for great build up. (Not that I need much)









As you can see the crowd kept growing and growing and growing until every nook and cranny, every stair and available space around where the Yarn Harlot would be appearing was flled with excited knitters, busy working on some fabulous knitty project.

I found the group very warm, very friendly and a lot of fun - there was a great deal of catching up between old friends, the joy of meeeting/making new friends and a lot of laughter. I tried to capture some pics of familliar faces...

Carol...


(left to right) Nadia, Susan and Peggy...


And new friend...Joey from Ohio.


I also met Swatchy and Noricum although I didn't capture them in picture form. What a treat - thanks for the postcard Noricum!

Right before Stephanie arrived...


The time really flew by one everyone was seated and then Stephanie appeared. It was amazing to hear the crown swell up and cheer. I am not sure if that frightened Stephanie more, but after her introduction, she finally got to the stage.

Stehanie being introduced...


After saying hi nervously, Stephanie did her formal group shots....

I thought it was cool to capture her taking our group shot as I took hers...and yes I know very nerdy.

Then Stephanie launched into what was a very humour packed 30-40 minute speech which had her petting her pet kitty/wool...

...and more or less keeping the group in stiches, really bringing to life the Yarn Harlot as we all know(kinda) and love her.

Once the speech was over, then the autograph session began. I really liked that Stephanie gave first priority to mom's with babies on the outside or the inside. To me that was very thoughtful....and I had the warm-fuzzies.

This darling little one held the sock and let Stephanie capture a few really cute shots of her...I'm sure to appear on her blog some day soon.

Finally it was my turn...

I think I mumbled a bunch of stuff...but can't really remember...besides asking her which beer she would like waiting for her at the Dick.

After some small amount of coaxing Carol, Shelley and Janet we made our way to the Spotted Dick, where a rather large group of Drunken Knitters had all ready arrived and were awaiting the hoards of other knitters. In the picture above with Janet and I, you can see that I have started a project as I had only cast on the first row. This was me starting the back side of the Blue Skies Alpacas "Ribbon Shell" that I have been working on somewhat slowly.


After finishing the front,

I realized I had made a fatal error, not knitting the front high enough to fit my chest...and rather than frog it back to fix it, I decided I would start the back and then once that was finished go back and fix the front.

I am really enjoying knitting with the baby alpacas/silk mix and think I am leaning towards becoming a yarn snob, as it feels like butter in my hands. I can't wait to finish the shell and get the ribbon through it... :)

Also got to see beautiful and blooming Jen from My Sensitive Girl hole. Congratulations again - you are looking fabulous....too bad we didn't get to chat.

So, I left the Dick and got home around 11:30 thankful that David (my partner) had graciously watched the whole caboodle of kids and that I had the opportunity to socialize with such a wonderful and warm group of people. I was a little sad not to be going on the yarn crawl yesterday, but that's life. I had a hectic work week and also took Thursday evening to catch up with dear friend Teresa, eating yummy italian food and seeing her fab not-so-newsish house...so taking Friday evening out too mean that the rest of weekend needed to be family time.

The good news is that Yarnaholic's Anonymous is meeting tomorrow night and I am looking forward to my knitty time again.

Beautiful babies....

My actual little baby - Taylor who is 11. He's not really little, but at least he's my youngest baby. *sigh*


My not so little 16 year old baby - Olyvia - in all of her natural radiance. :)*Sigh* *Sigh*

Time flies.....